Retailer reveals his profit on the sale of a loco

[Ryan Mccarthy]

A quite shocking video from A & H Models, Brackley, showing his profit margin on a typical locomotive sale (topic starts at 3 minutes). 

 

[PaulRhB]

That certainly agrees with a couple of retailers I’ve talked to and why I get what I can from them. 

[Miss Prism]

Without wishing to detract from the overall message of the video, i.e. the retailer doesn't make much, I would have preferred a simple list of figures.

[Bucoops]

6 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Without wishing to detract from the overall message of the video, i.e. the retailer doesn't make much, I would have preferred a simple list of figures.

 

Probably have to be careful with exact numbers with commercial sensitiviy.

[Joner]

I think it's more visual impact using the money than figures on paper.

 

Paul

[Phil Parker]

24 minutes ago, Joner said:

I think it's more visual impact using the money than figures on paper.

 

Paul

 

It's just a different way of presenting the information. One that is more personal, which adds to the impact.

 

All of which proves that working in model railways isn't a licence to print money, no matter what a small number of people like to claim.

[ColinK]

To me it shows how a local model shop isn’t going to survive on sales of paint and track pins if people buy their locos and other expensive items from the big box shifters and online stores.

[Michael Hodgson]

Why should model railway retail be any different from grocery retail?

Customers buy on price and convenience, so if higher turnover competitors or online are cheaper or more likely to be able to the products they want, that's where they will go.

 

Local model shops have simply gone the same way as the open-all-hours corner shop.  Exhortations to buy from the helpful bloke round the corner so that he will stay in business are all very well, but if most people prefer what they can get more of what they want cheaper elsewhere, it just ain't gonna happen.

[ikcdab]

44 minutes ago, ColinK said:

To me it shows how a local model shop isn’t going to survive on sales of paint and track pins if people buy their locos and other expensive items from the big box shifters and online stores.

It's not just model shops, though is it. All of the big "box shifters" started off as little model shops and they have grown to become what they are today. It's the same with any high street shop. Lots of the little ones have give and been replaced by Sainsbury's, Halfords, marks and Spencers etc.  The public like cheap prices and that's what happens.

[Free At Last]

I remember once working for a small electrical contractors and always on a new job the boss would say he was already losing money before I opened my toolbox.
He did manage to buy a nice house, canal boat and get a new car every year from his losses.

[AndrueC]

Any business that relies on footfall is doomed. That's just the way things have been heading for many years now. The hassle of getting into the nearest shopping centre. The cost of parking in the nearest shopping centre. The irritation of wading your way through crowds of shoppers.

 

I gave up on that the moment online shopping became viable. I'm quite happy to wait <random number> days for my stuff to arrive. It adds to the fun. A parcel arrives and it's like Christmas day as a kid. 'What's in the box?'. The only thing I want at a particular time are groceries and Tesco seem very capable of ensuring that.

 

I do use small online retailers for modelling stuff but for nothing else. The reason I mostly stick with Amazon is because most of the small retailers over time have managed to leak my email address. I know who leaks what because I use a DEA system and run my own mail server. If I get spam (thankfully very rare) I know why (*). Amazon use a well thought out system that means only they know your address even if you contact a reseller.

 

(*)If you don't you can't. Don't trust anything your email client tells you. Every user visible field in an email can be faked. I could send you an email claiming to be addressed to Michael Mouse and sent from the Pope. Without access to the mail server you'd be none the wiser.

Edited January 1, 2022 by AndrueC

[SM42]

Very thought provoking video.

 

The issue people have with the price of anything as I see it is that the number on the tag is all they see and I am guilty of this too.

"How much?" Flashes across my mind on a regular basis.

 

Yes we all want to pay the lowest price we can for our stuff but what we don't consider is how we can afford such things. 

 

If I look back to my childhood, you could pick up a Lima loco for less than a tenner.  10 years later it was around £20 and that was in the great Lima discount years.

A 100% increase over 10 years. 

 

At the same time incomes were a lot lower than they are now.

 

£10 was a lot of money then.

£170 - £200 ish is a lot now

 

If I look back at my incomes over the years, then the proportion  of the money in my pocket I would need to use to buy those locos has stayed remarkably consistent with a slight rise by a point or two..

 

 

If people look at the whole picture rather than just the price tag they may have a different perspective on why things appear expensive and may not think  someone is ripping someone off somewhere and maybe the complaining will stop. 

 

I won't hold my breathe thougj

 

I appreciate that there are a lot of people for whom a loco is a very large slice of their disposable income and that I can count myself fortunate to be able to support my hobby when many struggle to pay their bills and hobbies are a pipe dream. 

 

 

Andy

 

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It's just a different way of presenting the information. One that is more personal, which adds to the impact.

 

All of which proves that working in model railways isn't a licence to print money, no matter what a small number of people like to claim.

Maybe printing money is what they need to do - with all the skills at their disposal I am sure they could bake a load of notes that would be undetectable, use the shops as washing houses to distribute it into society.

 

Of course if it was Dapol they would probably use the wrong shade and Hornby, only known for doing steamers, would do a £1 note.

[Phil Parker]

36 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Local model shops have simply gone the same way as the open-all-hours corner shop.  Exhortations to buy from the helpful bloke round the corner so that he will stay in business are all very well, but if most people prefer what they can get more of what they want cheaper elsewhere, it just ain't gonna happen.

 

Online works for big ticket items but is rubbish for that single pot of paint. That's why old-fashioned idiots like me champion them. If the hobby is evolving into simply buying boxes and sticking them in the cupboard, then I'm out. 

 

Fortunately, UKModelshops show a small increase in retail outlets, confirmed by others in the trade, so all is not lost. 

 

Model shops, IMHO, are destinations people will travel too. They can exist in small town shopping centres, replacing those shop killed by supermarkets (grocers, butchers,  candlemakers etc.) where space is cheaper and they can operate online and walk-in. Tony's Trains in Barby ticks that box and there are others. 

[woodenhead]

What perhaps is annoying especially as a trader, is the expected discount - knocking 15% off the price because they have to immediately removes most of their potential profit.  Then Hornby of course sell at RRP on their website and have recently restricted supply to their shops through the tier system which makes a double whammy, less sales for the traders impacting profit whilst Hornby takes that profit the trader could have made plus also the additional profit from not applying the rrp discount.

[Phil Parker]

32 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

Any business that relies on footfall is doomed. That's just the way things have been heading for many years now. The hassle of getting into the nearest shopping centre. The cost of parking in the nearest shopping centre. The irritation of wading your way through crowds of shoppers.

 

That's a specific, personal point of view. For many, shopping in person, browsing items for sale is a pleasant pastime. Sitting in a bunker avoiding all other people doesn't do if for them. I was chatting to a friend recently who uses online supermarket shopping but still chooses to go to stores too "because you find things you didn't know existed or that you wanted." 

 

That accords with my love of model shops. I spent a long time yesterday rummaging at Footplate in Kidderminster. I bought stuff I didn't really need and was tempted by more - and it was FUN! 

[Mallard60022]

49 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Why should model railway retail be any different from grocery retail?

Customers buy on price and convenience, so if higher turnover competitors or online are cheaper or more likely to be able to the products they want, that's where they will go.

 

Local model shops have simply gone the same way as the open-all-hours corner shop.  Exhortations to buy from the helpful bloke round the corner so that he will stay in business are all very well, but if most people prefer what they can get more of what they want cheaper elsewhere, it just ain't gonna happen.

and you think that is a good world then?

P

[Mallard60022]

Also, you don't know what ya got till its gone.....

[PaulRhB]

2 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That's a specific, personal point of view. For many, shopping in person, browsing items for sale is a pleasant pastime. Sitting in a bunker avoiding all other people doesn't do if for them. I was chatting to a friend recently who uses online supermarket shopping but still chooses to go to stores too "because you find things you didn't know existed or that you wanted." 

 

That accords with my love of model shops. I spent a long time yesterday rummaging at Footplate in Kidderminster. I bought stuff I didn't really need and was tempted by more - and it was FUN! 

I think that sums it up, both my local shops are a visit to look forward to for the discovery of bits and the friendly greeting   it’s a nice place to go. 

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That accords with my love of model shops. I spent a long time yesterday rummaging at Footplate in Kidderminster. I bought stuff I didn't really need and was tempted by more - and it was FUN! 

Arcadia in Shaw is like that too and then he plies you with plentiful cups of tea too.

 

Work used to take me near it every day but now it's a trek I only make if I want something.

[Mallard60022]

6 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That's a specific, personal point of view. For many, shopping in person, browsing items for sale is a pleasant pastime. Sitting in a bunker avoiding all other people doesn't do if for them. I was chatting to a friend recently who uses online supermarket shopping but still chooses to go to stores too "because you find things you didn't know existed or that you wanted." 

 

That accords with my love of model shops. I spent a long time yesterday rummaging at Footplate in Kidderminster. I bought stuff I didn't really need and was tempted by more - and it was FUN! 

 

That's how it should be. The World changes and not always for the better. Same with People sadly, Modellers included.

P

[AndrueC]

6 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

That's a specific, personal point of view. For many, shopping in person, browsing items for sale is a pleasant pastime.

True, but apparently it's a very common point of view.

[Andy Hayter]

55 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Why should model railway retail be any different from grocery retail?

Customers buy on price and convenience, so if higher turnover competitors or online are cheaper or more likely to be able to the products they want, that's where they will go.

 

Local model shops have simply gone the same way as the open-all-hours corner shop.  Exhortations to buy from the helpful bloke round the corner so that he will stay in business are all very well, but if most people prefer what they can get more of what they want cheaper elsewhere, it just ain't gonna happen.

 

 

While the analogy may be an accurate one I think there is a big difference.

 

My corner shop sold fresh fruit and veg, tinned goods, buckets, cakes and brooms.  I can get all of these at my supermarket.

 

When I left the UK, my local model shop sold model trains from the rtr producers, plasticard, plastrut, glues and solvents, paints, white metal castings, kits in plastic, brass and white metal, replacement wheels for locomotives, wagons and coaches, scenicing materials, plaster bandage and a whole lot more.

 

I don't think I can now go to a single website to get even half that range.

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

True, but apparently it's a very common point of view.

It's common but we've been conditioned to believe online is better than in store, that bigger is better than smaller - but all it is really doing to putting the money into ever smaller numbers of online traders and the result is that the high street is now a series of bars, cafes, takeaways, charity shops, tanning places and betting shops.

 

And if we imagine there are lots of jobs in online, well robots are replacing many of those roles too because people have only one purpose to big online concerns - their money.

[Michael Hodgson]

7 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

and you think that is a good world then?

P

If this were a good world, it wouldn't have Covid, cancer, perennial wars, children suffering malnutrition or lifestyles causing climate change.  I can't even scratch the surface of fixing this or if you prefer, "The poor are always with us".